Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

“Him I can deal with. Dixon, on the other hand…”

“Least of our worries,” he said as he pulled up alongside Jared Dunning’s car. He rolled down his window, waited for Dunning to lower his as well. “We’re heading to Taco Bell. One down in Bayview-Hunters Point.”

“Why down there?” Dunning asked, looking tired and annoyed.

“You are clearly not a Taco Bell connoisseur. The ones around here suck. But first we gotta make a stop up in Sausalito. Drop off some paperwork. You’re welcome to follow.”

“Isn’t Sausalito north of the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“As a matter of fact it is. We’ll only be a few minutes, if you want to wait here for us before we head back down to lunch.” Dunning uttered a few choice swearwords as Carillo rolled up his window, then politely waited for Dunning to pull out after him before he took off. “Don’t think he’s real happy.”

“I don’t think he believes you. Now, where were we? Something about McKnight testifying?”

“Right. Sort of like the story Orozco told you. McKnight testified that he believed he was an innocent patsy. That the BICTT board of directors, that would be the international guys who couldn’t legally open a bank in our country, used his all-American name to secure investors, and to cover the foreign paper trail for the real investors. He says he knew nothing about it. The involvement of BICTT was merely as an advisory capacity, for international banking matters, and that he had no idea they were actually shareholders, or that everything under the sun was going through their office before he attached his signature.”

“With a scandal of that magnitude, how the hell did McKnight survive to have his name suggested as the federal procurement czar?”

“First of all, because he was cleared. Utterly and completely, and even though the Senate subcommittee report seems to indicate his story is dirtier than hell. Might have stayed buried had the president not tried to appoint him, thereby setting a chain of events into motion. When Scotty’s friend Hatcher walked in to do a background, it was the one thing that apparently no one else really bothered to do before then. Or maybe hoped no one would do.”

“Which is?”

“Sit down and actually read a copy of the subcommittee report. All umpteen-million pages of it. It seems McKnight and his BICTT investors were purchasing shares just below the five percent that would trigger the requirement of SEC disclosure-an obvious violation of SEC law, and one that McKnight, with his banking background, would have known about.”

“So how the hell did he skate on this?”

“Could be that a certain fairly new senator was sitting in on those hearings.”

“Donovan Gnoble?”

“None other. At no time did Gnoble ever mention that he knew McKnight, shared any business holdings with him, or that McKnight served under him during his years in the service, whether enlisted, special ops, or black ops. Of course, if it was black ops, no way would Gnoble mention it. And that would certainly explain why he’d overlook some serious flaws in the hearings and let McKnight skate. He can’t tell on McKnight, and McKnight can’t tell on him.”

“So Gnoble is dirty.”

“The question is, is it government-sanctioned black ops dirt, or un sanctioned black ops dirt?”

“Or a little of both.”

“Either way, if this were ever made public, it could potentially fuck up a really nice lead in the polls if, oh, the opposing candidate found out and put the proper spin on it. And Gnoble’s not the only party who’d like it kept under wraps. CIA sure as hell doesn’t want any of this festering history back out in the open. Not if, as Orozco told you, the BICTT scandal is just the tip of a very large iceberg that’s still floating around out there.”

“I can see where it might look particularly bad, especially from where we’re sitting, but other than our own suspicions, and a bit of circumstantial evidence, showing Gnoble’s name on a report…” She glanced over at him. “The bank pouch from Baja. Orozco said that the guys that came after us were probably a team of black ops. They were sent to get that pouch.”

“It makes sense. When you look at the whole picture. The background on McKnight, the upcoming election. That photo suddenly showing up in your mail. If it’s all related, then whatever got stirred up twenty years ago involving your father and Wheeler, it’s rearing its ugly head again. And if that’s what got your father killed

…”

He shrugged, left it hanging there. As if to say: What chance did she have?

Becky Lynn McKnight did not live in the nicest part of Sausalito, though Sydney wasn’t sure there was a bad part. Perhaps a more apt description was that Becky Lynn didn’t have a commanding bay view, which probably knocked off a cool million or so from the price of her home. Its very location, however, made the otherwise quaint, but pedestrian, single-story, stucco-sided home worth a veritable fortune.

“You sure this is the right place?” Sydney asked, as Carillo slowed near the listed address. “Pretty damned nice, considering.”

“Considering we have her flagged for OC, it fits. You don’t live in houses this nice if you’ve got no job and no income. It’s the one listed on our files, and the DMV shows that white Lexus in the driveway is registered to her.”

“What’s that old saying…?” Sydney asked. “You’ve come a long way, baby?”

“She wasn’t always a white-bread girl?”

“I was pretty young at the time, but looking back, she had all the earmarks of a con. Sort of just breezed in one day, and next thing I knew, she was running the pizza parlor and my dad was helping her move her things from some dive bar to a nicer apartment.”

“So she was a bad stray? Or just went bad?”

“Who knows? I mean, if she’s flagged by our guys, what did my father really know about her?” And what did Sydney really know about her father…?

They walked up the porch steps, and Carillo nodded in approval. “You know, government salary aside, if I got transferred to, like, Idaho, I could afford a little place like this and a Lexus.”

“Even paying alimony to Sheila?”

“Okay, maybe just the Lexus, but I bet the seats stretch out nice.”

They stood to either side of the door, and Sydney knocked. A moment later, it was opened by Becky Lynn, now middleaged, but looking very elegant in her navy slacks and white sweater that seemed so… country club chic. Definitely not the blue-jean, sweatshirt-wearing woman who had come into the east-side pizza parlor each night when Sydney was a kid. Her shoulder-length, once-bleached-blond hair was now dyed a dark auburn, and her face was expertly made up. Perhaps she was on her way to a lunch date. She’d aged, of course, with the telltale crow’s-feet around her brown eyes, and the over-forty laugh lines and hint of jowls haunting her mouth, which pressed together with tension, before turning up into a strained smile on seeing and no doubt recognizing Sydney. “Oh my gosh. Little Sydney?” She smiled, looked a bit too cheerful. “What a wonderful surprise!”

She did not, however, invite them in.

“Hi, Becky Lynn,” Sydney said, trying to keep things casual. “I was hoping I might ask you a couple questions about my father.”

“I was on my way to a lunch date. Can it wait?”

“Actually, no. May we come in?”

Becky Lynn glanced at Carillo, and Sydney figured she was trying to determine his part in all this. “I guess. If it doesn’t take too long.” She stepped aside and allowed them entry. The gleaming hardwood floor was covered by a large Oriental rug that muted their steps as she led them into the front room decorated in light cherry. The decor was exquisite, and quite different from the Becky Lynn that Sydney remembered, a woman who thought that red flocked wallpaper would be perfect for the ladies’ room, until Sydney’s mother put the nix on that idea.